


words and laughter wearing thin

by malafelis



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Nightmares, references to heaven sent the best piece of television ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:21:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24495631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malafelis/pseuds/malafelis
Summary: prompt: thirteen sometimes gets nightmares from the time loop twelve was stuck in, and the fam sometimes helps her.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Ryan Sinclair, Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair
Comments: 5
Kudos: 60





	words and laughter wearing thin

**Author's Note:**

> not sure why i always pick ryan as the narrator. maybe i like him the best. yes i procrastinated six months to write this. yes the title is from a chameleon circuit song.

Ryan turned over in his bed for what felt like the hundredth time, the sheets twisting around his torso and clinging to his legs. The clock on his bedside table shined numbers in his face that declared the hour far too early in the morning to give up on sleep. Although, he supposed, being on a time ship and all, the hour of the morning was rather relative. 

Sighing, he pushed himself up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, disentangling his limbs from the sheets. A walk around the TARDIS might tire him enough to fall back asleep— failing that, he could set up camp in the kitchen or library and wait for one of the others to rise and join him. 

The TARDIS corridors glowed with a faint blue light that seemed to emanate from the very air around him, accented by those strange orange hexagons every few meters. The ship and its makeup were largely a mystery to Ryan. Although by all accounts it should have been a machine, there was a strangely organic feel to it, as though the very walls pulsed with life. His bedroom was in a different hallway every night, and the route back to the console room was never the same. He sighed again, trailing his hand along the nearest orange hexagon: Another mystery that the Doctor would never explain. 

Padding down a random corridor to the right, Ryan slowed slightly: A strange noise was coming from somewhere up ahead. A soft, breathy, mutter-y sort of noise. Creeping down the hallway, Ryan tried to process it— it wasn’t any sound he’d heard the TARDIS make, and all the other occupants were assumedly asleep, just as he wished to be. Well— save for perhaps the Doctor. Ryan wasn’t actually sure how much she slept, being alien and all, but prowling the TARDIS in the dead of night certainly wouldn’t seem out of character for her. 

Turning down a new hallway (this one more orange than the last), the noise increased in volume, and he could recognize it as something distinctly human now. Frowning, he rounded a bend— if he wasn’t mistaken, that was the console room up ahead, and who would be in there now, at this hour? The Doctor had said the TARDIS didn’t need piloting while they were in the vortex— although, based on their frequent less-than-ideal landings, he wasn’t sure if that was true. 

“Wh— AHH!”

The sudden shout jolted Ryan from his thoughts and he dashed the rest of the way into the console room, heart pounding, eyes haphazardly scanning for the source of the noise. And— there. The Doctor was lying on the floor at the base of the console, knees drawn halfway to her chest, arm pillowed under her head. 

She looked peaceful— no indication that she had just yelled in fear, as Ryan had certainly just heard but was beginning to doubt in spite of himself. 

But no— there was that noise again, and it _was_ coming from her. She was whispering in her sleep, words and syllables Ryan couldn’t understand. Even as he watched, her murmurings became more frantic, her eyebrows drawing together and fingers twitching at her side. 

“Er— Doctor?” Ryan spoke softly as he approached her sleeping form. How she’d come to pass out right on the TARDIS floor he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Off to the side there was a toolbox of sorts, all sorts of unfamiliar gadgets spilling over the edge. A pair of pliers with oddly-shaped buttons down the side lay not far from the Doctor’s hand. Possibly she’d collapsed from sheer exhaustion while tinkering, which wasn’t a pleasant thought, Ryan considered worriedly. She’d been bright and cheery on their adventures just that afternoon, none of which had (for once) even been particularly taxing. How much of a mask had she been putting on?

“Doctor,” Ryan whispered again, crouching in the space in front of her. Her own muddled whispers hadn’t stopped, and now he was close enough to see her eyes darting back and forth beneath her eyelids. 

“Nonononono not… not again— not again.” Her sleep-talking was distinctly English now, and Ryan froze, watching the words tumble from her lips.

“Four billion… six hundred twenty-seven million… eight hundred sixty-three thousand… four hundred… seven.”

He stared, frozen in fear: He’d never seen the Doctor like this before.

“ _Doctor,_ come on, wake up, yeah?’ Ryan urged, raising his voice just above a whisper. 

“The stars… the— bird, bird, the grave—“

“You’re dreaming, Doctor, come on,” Ryan pleaded, a desperate edge creeping into his voice. How did you comfort a Time Lord having a nightmare? He reached his hand out and lightly jostled her shoulder. She hated physical contact at the best of times, so he was sure she’d be even more averse in this vulnerable state. 

Predictably, the Doctor jolted up at his touch as if electrocuted. “Clar— _WHO’S THERE?_ ”

Ryan leapt back out of the way of her swing, but she pitched harmlessly forward and caught herself on her hands and knees, breathing heavily, hands clenched into shaky fists.

Ryan swallowed, unsure of what to say, but making a go of it anyway. “Hey— hey, Doctor. S’alright. You’re alright.” 

After a moment, her labored breathing slowed and her form seemed to sag, the tension draining out of her in one heave of breath. Her hair hung limply in front of her face, obscuring Ryan’s view, but he wagered on less-than-dry eyes. 

Clearing her throat, the Doctor sat up slightly, kneeling with her hands still on the floor in front of her. 

“Sorry,” she croaked with a dry smile. 

“Hey, don’t be,” Ryan offered awkwardly. “I mean— we’ve all been there. Nightmares. I have ‘em, too, sometimes.”

She scrubbed the back of her hand across her face, tugging on her braces as if to busy herself with adjusting them. “You shouldn’t—“ she sighed. “You shouldn’t have seen that. I’m sorry.”

Ryan settled himself down, sitting criss-cross in front of her. “Seriously, Doctor. It’s okay.” He paused, considering another meaning of her words. “I’m sorry for invading, or anything. I just— you seemed like you needed to wake up.” He glanced at her, hoping she wasn’t about to storm off deep into the TARDIS, shutting him out like usual.

She let out her breath in a whoosh. “Yeah. I did. Thank you, Ryan. I just— you shouldn’t have to see me like this.”

“Hey. We’re a fam, remember? We see each other at our worsts.”

She smiled at that, the corners of her mouth just turning up at the edges. “Yeah. Thank you,” she said hoarsely, and openly met his gaze. 

They sat quietly for a few moments, the Doctor focusing on breathing evenly and Ryan hoping his presence was comforting rather than annoying. It was rare that he got to see her like this, without her shields up— _vulnerable._ Usually every attempt by himself or the others to know her, her past, on any level, was evaded. She expertly dodged anything resembling a personal question— and on the occasion, not-so-expertly. Once, on a planet made entirely of lavish botanical gardens, Yaz had innocently asked the Doctor what her favorite flower was. The Doctor had opened her mouth, closed it, and abruptly strode off down the nearest wildflower-lined path. Her aversion to letting herself be known didn’t make Ryan trust her any less— he knew she cared for them, knew she would never let any harm befall them. But he wondered, sometimes, if she was okay. 

It must be lonely, Ryan thought, to not truly be known by anyone. 

He was startled from his thoughts by the sound of approaching footsteps. Craning his neck around, he saw Yaz and Graham appear in the same hallway he’d entered from. They bore matching bathrobes and worried expressions, the light from the console casting their faces in an orange glow. 

“What’s goin’ on, we heard shouting?” Yaz said, peering into the console room. “Why’re you sat on the floor?”

“Er— I was just, er… helping. Helping the Doctor with some… stuff,” Ryan finished lamely. 

In front of him, the Doctor sprung to her feet, bouncing on her toes as if anxious to be anywhere else. Yaz shot her a puzzled look. 

“I, er, fell asleep working,” the Doctor said brightly. “Had a dream. Ryan here was just waking me up.”

Graham and Yaz exchanged a look, Graham inclining his head to her in a _go on_ sort of way. Yaz stepped forwards, the worried expression still lingering on her face. 

“Are you alright?” she asked quietly, gazing at the Doctor. 

“Yep!” the Doctor chirped, her left hand fidgeting madly by her side.

“D’you wanna… talk about it?”

“Nope!”

Silence stretched for one, two, three seconds, before Graham cleared his throat and stepped forwards next to Yaz. 

“Well, that’s alright, eh? Long as you know we’re here for you, same as you are for us.” 

Ryan turned back toward the Doctor. Was she going to dodge this attempt at comfort, as well? 

Her tight, panicky smile softened into a real one, her hand stilling at her side. “‘Course,” she said softly. She picked her head up, looking at each of them in turn. “Really, ‘course. And thank you for… caring. About silly old me.”

Ryan pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the cramp in his knee as he patted the Doctor’s shoulder. “We’re your mates,” he smiled. “It’s what we do.” Yaz and Graham nodded behind him, and he felt, for a moment, the reality of that silly word the Doctor threw around so often. 

“Right!” Graham exclaimed, “I’m back off to bed then. Reckon you should be too, the lot of you. _And_ you,” he finished, fixing the Doctor with a stare. 

She huffed out a laugh. “Think I actually might. Must’ve been ages since I’ve had a proper sleep if I’m dozing off in here.” Ryan didn’t let himself dwell on that tidbit of information (Ages? What constituted ages? How often did Time Lords sleep? How long had the Doctor been awake?), and instead, headed towards the hallway, trailing behind Yaz and Graham.

One by one, they filtered out of the console room, peeling off at different hallways to head to their respective bedrooms, offering sleepy goodnights as they went. The ambient blue glow of the halls was starting to make Ryan’s eyes droop, and he realized contentedly that he was finally tired again. Turning into the corridor where he knew his room to be, he called a “‘Night, Doctor” over his shoulder. 

“‘Night, Ryan,” he heard back, stifled through a yawn. Smiling softly, he pushed open his door and crossed the room, collapsing heavily into his bed. 

**Author's Note:**

> whoify.tumblr.com :^)


End file.
